Reflections on Iran

Iran has certainly been in the news over the past decade or two. I would like to look at three aspects of this country: Iran itself, its foreign policy and, finally, its relations with the US. Iran has a population of nearly 70 million with half of it being under 25 years old. The economy has therefore to create a considerable number of jobs to meet the expectations of this growing generation. Another important aspect of Iran is that its population surpasses that of the Gulf states, including Iraq, put together.

Iran is unique in that it was one of the earliest non-Arab countries to accept Islam. However, it has embraced Shi'ia Islam as against the Sunni Islam; the latter is the brand of Islam that is most prevalent in the Arab world. Persia, as Iran was known in the past, carries an unrivalled historic and cultural baggage.

The fact that Iran follows Shi'ia Islam is significant. In Islam there isn't the strong distinction between Church and state. Though some Arab states can be said to be secular, namely there exists a distinction between Shari'a law and civil law, in Shi'ia Islam there is much less distinction between the two; ultimate power rests not with the President or Prime Minister but with the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council made up of six Ayatollahs, a council that can veto any legislation and has to approve every candidate that sits for parliamentary elections.

The other significant fact concerning Iran is that it is a leading oil producer and has reserves of gas only second to those of the Russian Federation.

As the leading Shi'ia state, Iran certainly has the interest in the state of Shi'ia in nearby states. Until the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime, though Shi'as in Iraq were a majority, they never had power and were discriminated against. Of course, today Iran would like to see its fellow Shi'ias having a fair share of power commensurate with their presence among Iraq's population. I suppose this is to be expected.

There are significant Shi'ia minorities in Bahrain and in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, the area that is the oil producing area of the kingdom. Also in divided Lebanon today, the followers of Shi'ia Islam, though not in a majority, are the largest sector of the population.

Does this make Iran a hegemonic power? Is its nuclear ambition part of this attempt of hegemony in the Gulf? Tehran has never expressed itself in these terms, however history has thought Iran some bitter lessons, none more bitter then the Iraq-Iran war, a war that lasted from 1980 to 1988 during which Iran lost over half a million people and during which Saddam Hussein used gas against the Iranians. Only later would the West and its Gulf allies admit that Iraq was the aggressor.

What was troubling for Iran was the fact that the Iraqi aggression took place soon after Khomeini had come to power and had replaced the heads of the military and security apparatus. The Iraqis, with the backing of the US, felt that this was the right moment to strike.

A second less serious form of aggression was the coup organised by the CIA and British intelligence that led to the downfall, in August of 1953, of the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and his replacement by Reza Shah Pavlavi. Mr Mossadegh was an extremely popular Prime Minister whose only fault was the nationalisation of Iran's oil industry.

These experiences have made Teheran wary of its neighbours and the super powers that support them. Therefore it has tried to change the course of events by supporting fellow Shi'ias wherever possible.

Relations with the US have not been smooth. The overthrow of Mr Mossadegh by the CIA and the US support for Iraq in its war of aggression against Tehran have not been helpful and cannot easily be forgotten. Later on we had the infamous USS Vincenne incident, when, in July 1988, the captain of this naval vessel shot down an Iranian Airbus with 290 people on board, stating that he mistook it for a military plane.

The taking of US Embassy staff as hostages by Iranian students must also be mentioned.

These are the clouds that overshadow recent attempts at some sort of dialogue between the US and Iran. If this were not enough, one has to add the issue of Iran's nuclear programme; the fact that the US is accusing Tehran of supplying more sophisticated devices to Iraqi insurgents, devices that are claiming the lives of an increasing number of US soldiers and also the fact that the US has admitted that it is already conducting covert operations inside Iran to destabilise the Islamic state.

Under such clouds and with such historical baggage it will be difficult for progress to be made in US-Iran talks, however one has to be an optimist. Notwithstanding all its difficulty, Iraq could be the lever that could lead to rapprochement between the US and Iran. Both countries, though for different reasons, want a stable Iraq with a democratically-elected government. For the US this would make it possible to pull its troops out of an unpopular and failed effort and, for Iran, free elections should lead to a government in which the Shi'ias would be the largest bloc.

With hindsight one can say that, in the end, the main beneficiary of US intervention in Iraq will be Iran. This is not the result that Washington was aiming for. Shi'ia predominance in Iraq and Iran could have a destabilising effect in countries with significant Shi'ia minorities.

I would just like to make two comments.

If Tehran is developing nuclear technology for military use then I would not be surprised if, at some point in time, Israel will intervene, as it did in Iraq, and destroy these nuclear facilities.

The second point, and with which I would like to conclude, is the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. Why do we have two weights and two measures? Israel has nuclear weapons and, yet, no one bats an eyelid; also India and Pakistan have both developed nuclear weapons and have delivery systems and, yet, even though the possibility of armed conflict between the two still exists, no one has called for sanctions against either.

Tehran has felt cornered, has been attacked and sees itself as a victim; this is also reflected in the history of Shi'ia Islam and its founder. Under such circumstances it is not easy to make concessions.